#CompassionINDO @CompassionAU
Today I met Jun. He’s a cool 12 year old kid. I enjoyed hanging out and getting to know him. Like me, his favourite sport is soccer. We had fun beat boxing and making up songs about how Jesus is Number One!
Jun lives in Surawet, North Sulawesi with his mum, dad and brother. He is part of the Compassion project in his area. Unfortunately he no longer has a sponsor.
His father is a rural worker, but work is seasonal. It mean his family lives on $25 a month.
A Compassion sponsorship for Jun would be an incredible support to his family and Jun continuing in the program.
Do you have a sponsor child? If not, prayerfully consider sponsoring Jun. It’s only $44 a month.
Interested? Let me know ASAP and I can line it up.
Ps – Jun is the one on the left :)
Hi Dave,(please excuse the pen name)
I just stumbled across your blog and noticed these latest few posts about Indo. I appreciate what you are trying to communicate and acheive.
However, I have some hesitations with the overall framework.
I live in Indo. I know the poverty first hand. I live and breath with these people on a daily basis. And, like many, I initally thought money was what was needed in this culture to alleviate the poverty. But I was wrong. Fundamentally, they need to gospel. They need a cultural change.
I’ve come to realise that poverty is not just material and financial. It is also emotional, educational, spiritual, etc.
You may financially help a poor family, but fail to realise they squander their profits on sacrifices; a spiritual poverty. $44 might give a better education to a child, but their worldview remains largely depreciated, valuing themselves as worthless; emotional poverty. They therefore, remain in the trappings of material poverty unable to move forward from it.
In other words, throwing money at poverty doesn’t always work. And sadly (hopefully not your case), a “show” is performed for foreigners in the hope of recieving financial assistance. This is particular dangerous for short term explorations.
I say this, not to discredit what you are doing, but to show another reality I personally face. In our area we are trying to implement many of these principles. We have an NGO focused on the needs of the community, we have health programs, we have education programs and we have gospel programs (a strong Muslim context). We also have international funding. However, we limit its use. In fact, we insist on the locals funding the projects partially themselves. This is hard for us when we know we could funnel the funds from Aus or elsewhere, espeically when you see the stark poverty of these people. But experience has taught that ownership is what is needed in these areas. The people need to be equipped. Hand outs are only a temporary fix. In other words, we need more development and less aid.
However, for wholistic change to occur requires a worldview change. This is only acheived through the gospel. We just need to be aware that poverty is not just a material issue- it is fundamentally a cultural and worldview issue. Only Jesus can penetrate that! So $44/month is not much for us (and can make us feel good in a sense), and alot for them. But long term, we may actually be hindering their ability to reduce and overcome poverty by themselves.
Bless ya mate!
Thanks for your thoughts.
Appreciate it.
I’d be keen to interact on what you’ve raised.
But won’t be able to for another 2 days… Stay tuned!
Peace
Hey bro,
Here’s a report that’s recently been released by compassion…
Worth seeing:
http://www.compassion.com.au/content/wydick-research/gkiaug
Hey mate,
Thanks for the link. I’m always interested to see and examine what is and isn’t working in poverty alleviation. I’ll definately store this for future reference.
Although, I was suprised to read this,
“What distinguishes Compassion projects from most government and international donor programs, and from some other child sponsorship programs, is that children spend at least eight hours per week in an intensive after-school program that emphasizes their spiritual, physical, and socio-emotional development.”
I say Amen! This is exactly what I was getting at in my comment above. Sadly, as this report demonstrates, “most” poverty alleviation strategies focus on material needs only, which isn’t surprising considering we come from an essentailly materialistic worldview. I’m glad Compassion see the bigger picture- what an encouragement!
However, I am wondering how they can do those “extra” programs while still remaining as a Christian NGO (if that is what they are?). Are you aware if they are welcomed in Islamic contexts with such programs?
One of our big challenges is getting acceptance into a strong Muslim community. We have had to register our NGO as secular as a means to even enter. Therefore, we can’t run “Christian” activities as part of the NGO itself. To do so would create an integrity issue for us.
Any thoughts?